Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus would use the customer-service tactic of chasing disappointed shoppers through the parking lot.
That's why some early customers had the unique experience of getting chased down in the store's parking lot by the businessman.Read more:"What is it that we don't carry that you need? Why didn't you buy something?" Marcus wrote that he'd ask empty-handed shoppers, as he followed them to their cars.
"If they said, 'It's because you didn't have what I needed,' then he would go and buy it somewhere else and take it to their homes," Home Depot archivist and historian Jennifer Wyatt told Business Insider. After the business launched in 1979, Home Depot"had trouble convincing vendors to sell product to them," Wyatt said.
She added that she tracked down longtime employees who'd had to pad out shelves with"empty boxes and empty paint cans" to avoid looking under-stocked. But when shoppers encountered such gaps in the merchandise, Marcus tried to always intervene. He wrote that he'd personally head over to rivals like West Building Supplies, Handy City, or a wholesaler, buy the product and strip it of its pricetag, and then make a home delivery for the shopper, at a reduced Home Depot price.
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